Dieter Thomä, “Ich war’s! Keiner ist es gewesen! Zur Dramatisierung und Entdramatisierung von Entscheidungen” / “It was me! It wasn’t Anybody! On the Dramatization and De-Dramatization of Decisions”
Thursday, 23 May 2024, 19:15 CET
Senatssaal of Humboldt University
Unter den Linden 6
10117 Berlin
GERMANY
With Ethel Matala de Mazza
Sponsored by:
The Mosse Foundation
Institut für deutsche Literatur
Humboldt University
Mosse Lectures
Lecture Overview: Two opposing movements can currently be observed: On the one hand, there is a dramatization of individual responsibility and freedom of choice. On the other hand, the scope for decision-making of the individual is being restricted – with reference to structures and processes that are beyond their control. In other words, the constraint of the individual is replaced by the constraint of the factual, and empowerment is replaced by disempowerment. These contemporary diagnostic observations are reflected in systematic findings from action theory and social philosophy. Certain theories of individual freedom and disempowerment are part of the dramatization of decisions, while theories of determinism and the embedding of the individual are part of their de-dramatization. The lecture outlines a critique of this duplication from both a view to our time and in a systematic perspective and develops a model of action and decision inspired by narratology and genealogy.
Dieter Thomä: Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen until 2023; since 2003, he has been co-editor of the »Zur Einführung« series published by Junius; Thomä has been a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a visiting professor at Brown and Yale University; his work focuses on social philosophy, ethics, cultural philosophy, political philosophy and phenomenology as well as – in all these areas – the Socratic question of »how to live«; Dieter Thomä is the author of numerous monographs that have been translated into several languages.
